So why no sudden rush on this apparent miracle cure of the nineties?
"In this country, we have a religion. It's called the god of drugs," says Daniel L. Kirsch, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Electromedical, a neurobiologist, and a harsh critic of the conventional medical profession's obsession with chemistry.
"Today most Americans think that if you get sick, you take chemicals, all of which have side effects, or you have a piece cut out of you. We're a level beyond that. Medical science sees the body as a chemical unit; we see it as a bioelectrical unit."
The view of the body as a big electrical battery made up of 75 trillion little cellular batteries has been around since at least 1902, when Russian healers experimented with the concept of electricity as a treatment. Kirsch refined the idea while he was researching and teaching acupuncture in the early seventies. He and Lerner then developed an application called bioconductive therapy, which measures the sites of low electrical conductivity on the body and uses minute doses of electricity to bring those areas into balance with the rest of the body to alleviate pain.
The first version of the Alpha-Stim was a dial-festooned box the size of an office typewriter that could help someone THC Detox. The device was sold on what Kirsch calls a "challenge basis" to a few physicians for treatment of acute, chronic, postoperative pain, and word slowly spread. Finally, in 1983, the Food and Drug Administration approved the device for clinical use and for sale by prescription only. Any licensed practitioner, such as a physician, chiropractor, dentist, physical therapist, or (in some states) naturopath, can order one for a patient's home use. Today, Kirsch and Lerner claim that nearly two million patients have been treated with bioelectric technology since 1981.
The latest phase of the Alpha-Stim's development is the Alpha-Stim CS, a streamlined beeper-sized version of the original product. It comes complete with four electrodes and conductive pads, which are attached at the area of pain, and runs off a nine-volt household battery. The small model, which retails for $795, is used by the general public as a treatment for stress, insomnia, and seemingly just about anything short of the common cold.
Most TENS devices use low-level waves of electricity as "counter-irritants" that block the ability of nerve endings to receive pain. This differs from biofeedback, in which electrical signals originating in a patient are projected back to the patient in the hope of training the patient's body to control the physical action creating the signals.
